Garcia Named New Director of ASU Art Museum

Miki Garcia, the former executive director and chief curator of Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara is joining Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts as the new director of ASU Art Museum.

“Miki is a great choice for ASU,” said Steven Tepper, ASU Herberger Institute dean. “She is a seasoned museum director with extensive experience growing her institution, building her board, securing investments and creating powerful programming.”

Garcia, who will begin at ASU Art Museum December 1, has been the leader of Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara since 2005. Under her direction, the museum grew from a grassroots alternative arts space to a financially sustainable, internationally recognized contemporary art museum. As chief curator, she oversaw curatorial and public strategies that received significant accolades from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Getty Foundation and the James Irvine Foundation, among others.

“One of my passions is reimagining the potential of art and museums to impact the lives of all people in the spirit of inclusivity, equity and diversity,” said Garcia. “I am fiercely committed to the future of the museum and the role of arts in society. I am so excited to join the Arizona State University Art Museum, a museum within one of the most innovative public research universities in the country dedicated to inclusion; advancing research and discovery of public value; and assuming fundamental responsibility for the economic, social, cultural and overall health of the communities it serves.”

Earlier in her arts career, Garcia was project coordinator at the Public Art Fund in New York City and curatorial associate at Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. She has served as a curatorial representative to the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington, D.C. on behalf of the Getty Foundation and has been a juror for the National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Capital Visual Arts Awards, Art Matters Foundation and more. She has her master’s of arts in art history from University of Texas, Austin and specializes in Latin American and Latinx Art.

“The ASU Art Museum has been recognized as among the most important contemporary art museums in the region, with exhibitions and programming that have attracted global attention,” Tepper said. “Miki will help us leverage this reputation and the talent of our team to have even greater impact on campus and beyond. Importantly, she believes deeply in ASU’s potential to transform our region and to advance a new model of a 21st-century university art museum that advances art at the intersections of every important issue of our day.”

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